Young Justice, The Hidden Chronicles Episode 1: Rise of Halo
by UpriverInk
Summary: Nicholas Vincetti is a hero in nearly every sense of the word. He's strong, courageous, and will do the right thing no matter what the cost; but he is much more important than he realizes. With a dark evil approaching, the world needs a champion of the light, it needs The Halo.


I'm back! So here it is, the first chapter of The Hidden its revised and re-edited glory. I'm really proud of how this came out and I hope you enjoy it! So sit back, relax or do none of those things and read standing up.

(Disclaimer: I do not own anything except for my original characters)

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><p>KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! The door to the small apartment slowly creaked open, and the young boy stepped inside "Mama! Papa! I'm home from school! You guys said you we're going to pick me up!"<p>

The boy dropped his bag on the couch. It was October 1st 1999, the location was Gotham, and the young man in question is Nicholas, Salvatore, Vincetti.

Already quite tall for the age of five, young Nicholas had dark brown hair and grey eyes. He was dressed in one of the collared shirts his elementary school makes him wear.

As of right now he suspects nothing is wrong, after all he has quite busy parents and it is quite often that they can't pick up their boy from school.

Unbeknownst to the boy was the fact that this day shall be one he remembers for the rest of his life. A loud beeping could now be heard, and Nicholas turned in the direction of the peculiar noise.

Cautiously, he took a step towards his parents room, followed by another. Slowly but surely, he crept up to the door and opened it. Inside his dead parents lay on the ground clutching each other.

There were bullet holes in each of their foreheads and attached to his mother was a note. With horror, he crept up to his dear mothers body and plucked the note.

"I brought you a present" it read with an arrow pointing forward. He opened the closet, setting off the trap. What happened next is something that Nicholas will come to understand someday.

BOOM! Nicholas was encased in a white light and rendered unconscious. The walls blew apart and where an entire home once stood, there was an empty shell.

Thirty minutes later, emergency services arrived on scene. The boy was found with his face burried in his mother's lifeless body. It took four officers to finally pull the boy off and when they did, he fell asleep.

Nicholas was taken back to the police station for questioning, but wouldn't budge. No words could be uttered by the young one, whose life was now forever changed.

Eventually a man in dark green military fatigues arrived at the station. The man had come to take Nicholas to stay with him. See Nicholas was born in Italy and he had no relatives in this country.

His parents had long severed the ties they had back home, and with no one relatives to care for the child, someone else would have to step in.

It would take a few days for the papers to go through, but after that Nicholas would officially become this mans ward.

This man's name was John Deluca, a semi-retired U.S. Marine who was recently brought on to the United States Secret Response Division.

More recently the Division began targeting orphaned children, particularly from immigrant families. Off the heels of a failed project, the Division came up with the Idea for child soldiers who would live double lives and train into adulthood.

This new project was designated Olympus and would teach the group of 50 children to fight like gods. The children would live with their handlers homes as their wards. No one outside the project would know a thing. 

Nick was assigned the designation ghost-09 in accordance to their new field names. Today was the day that a leader would be chosen among them.

Nick stood amongst several kids of mixed ethnicity and race. They were in an auditorium with no seats. All the children were wearing white t-shirts and black pants.

The boy to the right of Nick looked Asian with black hair while the boy on the right appeared to be caucasian with brown hair. "Hi, my names Nicholas" Nick whispered to the boy on the right.

The boy gave him a confused look "Watashi wa rikai shite inai?" he clearly didn't speak any english. Nick then turned to the boy on the left.

"Can you speak english?" the boy looked at him "Yeah, my names Mickey" Mickey spoke with an irish accent.

"Do you have any Idea what they want with us?" Nick asked "No, I'm kinda scared though. Some man just adopted me from the orphanage and now I'm here"

"Wait you're an orphan?" Mickey nodded "Yeah, I thought we all were. Every kid I asked told me they were living in an orphanage, what about you? You were still living with your parents?" Nick stared down.

He thought back to three days ago when he found the corpses of his parents. "My parents were murdered a few days ago, a nice man named John took me right from the police station" Mickey put his hand on Nick's shoulder "I'm sorry to hear that man.

I was in the orphange because my parents didn't want me, but you actually had people who cared" A man entered onto the stage and the children fell quiet.

He looked to be in his fifties and he wore a military general's uniform. The man pulled a communicator out of his pocket and said something into it. Instantly, the sound of a radio signal echoed into the big empty room.

"You have all be chosen to take part in a new military experiment. All of you from tommorow onward will be trained to be soldiers in the U.S. Military. You will be trained everyday after school and your homework will be taken care of by someone else.

You will be permitted to have friends inside of school and among your fellow soldiers. Tonight however, you should all get some sleep" The small speech ended and all the children were gathered by their handlers.

Except for Nick, all the children were loaded into small aircraft and taken to their home states. This was going to be the start of something weird.

5 years later

The year was 2004, the day was July 2nd, Nicholas was now ten years of age. Nick had been with his group for quite some time now and he had formed a rather strong bond between two of his group mates.

Hakiro Motegi, the Japanese immigrant from California and Mickey O'Donnell, the Irish immigrant from Boston. The three had become best friends and a most effective team.

Today was the day that the recruits of project Olympus would learn to survive in the desert. No one in the group knew their exact location, but they knew they were somewhere in the middle east.

Each recruit was dropped in different drop points and were instructed to meet up with the other members of the group. Once together, Nick will be in charge of leading the group to the extraction point.

They dropped and almost immediately there was a problem. Nicholas never met up with his group, instead he was in an abandoned temple surrounded by members of the League of Assassins.

Nick was supplied with desert combat gear, minus the helmet. He was allowed only one melee weapon and he chose a bo staff. The staff that he was now drawing to protect himself.

One ninja struck, he blocked; another one, STRIKE! Nick dodged and whacked the warrior in the gut. Four struck at once and BOOM! SMACK! Nick jumped and did a scissor kick to take out two followed him landing and sweeping the footing out from the remainder.

Others were about to join in but the fight was instantly interrupted by the shout of one woman. The ninjas stood up straight as the woman in black jumped down from the rafters.

She looked to be Arabian, with long black hair. Nick was still standing in a defensive position, the woman ignored this and walked right up to him.

"What is your name young warrior?" Nick tensed up "It's Nicholas, what the hell do you want with me?" the woman smirked "My name is Talia Al Ghul. Me and these warriors are apart of the strongest fighting force on the planet, The League of Assassins.

I've been tracking your group since the moment you dropped, and I've singled out you in particular. You have a potential that we have only seen in one other. Would you come with us?

We shall train you in the art of the shadows and have you back to your group in no more than a month" Nick looked on with a puzzled face.

"What's the catch?" "When The League calls upon you, you must answer" He lowered his weapon "Deal" Talia nodded.

So for an entire month Nicholas was trained by the league. They taught him to master numerous martial arts and pressure points. He learned with ease and, in only a short time, he had surpassed the skills of some of the leagues more elite rank.

They had given him a new weapon, a sword made out of a very rare unbreakable metal called Fire ore. Fire ore is dark grey in color and shows no metallic sheen unless illuminated by flame.

The league had found and reactivated Nick's beacon in the middle of the desert. He would have an estimated 4 hours to get to the beacon and get home. There was one thing left to do before he had gone.

Nicholas went and visited Talia in training hall. "Madam?" She looked down at the child "What is it young warrior?" "Who is the one you spoke of? The one in whom you saw great potential?

The one like me?" She pondered, as if questioning herself. "His name is Bruce Wayne, and we call him The Bat"

3 years later

"Happy birthday babe" The Year is 2007, the day was January 30th. As of today Nick is 13 years of age. He was sitting on top of the rooftop of one of the buildings on base.

Next to him was his girlfriend, Catherine. A beautiful young blonde girl who technically lives in an insane asylum. "It's a wonderful night" Nick said aloud "Yeah, it's a nice break from all that fucking training"

he looked at the girl, who was now laying her head on his shoulder. "It's not that bad, I actually enjoy it. Fighting gets my blood pumping, kinda like a natural high" she closed her eyes

"Just you wait until next week when they send us on our first mission. You may be the best fighter we have, but you're no killer. That's why I like you Nick, you haven't lost your sense of morality"

"Please, I'm a natural killer, and don't call me "the best fighter" I pull my weight just like everyone else" Catherine laughed. "Killing is wrong, you may not know that, but your conscience knows it.

John tells me what you do away from the base, defending kids from bullies helping people out who need it. You're a good person Nick, you just haven't figured it out yet" not another word was spoken that night.

1 week later

"Catherine! You dirty son of a bitch! I'm gonna kill you!"

_BANG!_

John entered Nick's room in the middle of the night, he was clutching his pistol. "Nick? Do you want to talk about it?" Without even looking up, Nick responded "She's dead John, she was shot and killed right in front of me.

Then I lost myself, I emptied my mag into that guy's gut. He was the first man I've killed, it felt wrong on so many levels" John sat down next to me "If it makes you feel better, that man was a Mexican drug runner. He wasn't exactly a good man"

"It doesn't" John put his arm around the boy's shoulder "They're not sending your team on any other missions for a while, you have nothing to worry about until then" for the first time in eight years, Nicholas cried.

Not full out bawling, but just a single tear that fell from his eye. John continued comforting the boy, when all of a sudden footsteps were heard. Nick hid his pistol under his pillow

"It's Jessie, the sound of the footsteps match a girl of her weight and height" John sighed "Oh god, just imagine what you'll be like in few years when you get your augments"

the door creaked open and in walked a small nine year old girl with short brown hair. Jessie scratched her head "Hey, is everything alright?" John answered "Nick just had a pretty bad day at school"

"That's why he's crying?" Nick looked down "Catherine broke up with me" He lied...again.

1 year later

"Recruits, this is the X79 Field Integrated Tactical Awareness System, but you may refer to it as the FITAS" A military technician placed a dark green helmet on the table.

it was rounded with sharp white eyes. "This new piece of tech will be used in the field to track your ammo count and give a heads up display in the heat of battle.

They're made up of a very strong metal and the lenses are only white on the outside so they will work during an electrical attack" Nick raised a hand "Is that a working prototype?"

"No, this prototype is not fitted with the FITAS" "Then issue me that one, I don't want tech getting in the way of my fight"

2 years later

"Sir I'm afraid that you are the only one who survived the procedure. You no longer have to return here, the project is a failure. We're sorry for the trouble we've caused you, as reparations we will be sending 40 grand to your legal guardian every two years.

We will also be increasing the amount of weekly money that John gets as part of his military salary. We hope you understand that you can never discuss this program or any of the things that went on during your time here. You may leave now."

Nick took with him the prototype helmet, as well as his pistol, bo staff, sword, and bulletproof vest. No one ever found out where that gear went.

"Sir we've destroyed all the evidence of the project, including the weapons and gear used by the teams. There is however one anomaly, and you may want to look into it.

The manifest shows, or rather showed, a few pieces of gear missing. A single FN Five-Seven handgun, a dragons skin tactical vest, a X26b grapple launcher, and the prototype combat helmet" A technician stood before a military general.

"None of that can be traced back to us, don't worry about it. For now just get this base evacuated so we can demolish it"

Present Day

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><p>So, what did you think? Leave a review with your honest opinion and I'll be sure to have the next chapter up ASAP. Oh and don't forget to follow and favorite so I can afford to buy myself some dignity.<p> 


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